Thoughtful Thoughts

I feel more like me - my true and real self - when I've had the rest I need. I feel less chaotic inside and more aware of my surroundings and my heart and I guess I should take note that maybe going to bed earlier would be another thing I could do just to take better care of myself.

And this morning, I felt rested and alive and normal again. Perhaps going to bed at 9:45 helped with that and I should aim for an earlier bedtime every night.

When I walked outside to my car the air felt different. The breeze somehow almost made summer's end feel tangible. Even though my 30 years of living in south Texas reminds me that we still have at least another full month of summer-like temperatures before summer really does end here.

Though I never stop hoping that we'll get "lucky" and maybe this year it will be different. It is sometimes fun to hope and I won't ever stop hoping for an early autumn. I love fall and like every year, I am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

As I pulled out of my neighborhood, I caught the sun - just risen - in the sky. It was beautiful and blood orange. Even though the weather is still quite oppressively hot, the sunrise seemed to echo the whispers from God breathing His golden hued message that relief is on the way. Autumn is around the corner. The great shift in life and weather is coming and the long Texas summer promises to end.

God always woos me with sunrises and the warm colors of the morning that make me feel bright and cheerful and loved.

I thanked Him for beauty. I thanked Him for my job because having it allows me to catch the sunrises I love so much. And I thanked Him for creating me the way that He did so I could appreciate the sunrises that I like to think that He makes just for me.

I've been more thankful lately.

There was an accident on I-35. And it took me 32 minutes to drive three miles. It never takes long for something to happen and attempt to rob me the joy and gladness that resides in my heart. But I chose to sit there - in the traffic, in the not moving, in the frustration of needing to go somewhere and feeling like I was going nowhere. I didn't get angry, and I wasn't exceptionally happy either. I just felt the tension of where I was. And eventually things got moving and I got to where I needed to go.

Traffic is just like a hot summer. It feels like it won't ever end, and it eventually does.

And summer is always the season that leaves me waiting for something new.

Waiting. I am always waiting for something it seems. I am hating it less and accepting it more though. Waiting seems to be an important part of life. I want to live well in the places I find myself waiting for.

None of this feels like it has any real cohesive point. Just some written down thoughts on the final Tuesday of another August gone by.

Sunrises. Traffic. Summer. Autumn. Rest. Thankfulness. Tension. Waiting.